BLACK HISTORY MONTH, DEI, AND THE WAY IT IS
It’s February 2025 in America. For me, February is the month where the grey, cold, winter days are made brighter and warmer by the love we show one another. We have Black Love Day on the 13th and St.Valentine’s Day on the 14th, but to me, February 1st is the real showstopper because it’s the first day of Black History Month.
In my lifetime, February has always been the month when we celebrated all things Black. I remember the posters of Black athletes, scientists, doctors, authors, activists, leaders, etc. on the walls at school. I fondly recall a giant Black History Month coloring book I had as a child. I wore out my brown crayons in shades like sepia, chestnut, burnt umber, fuzzy wuzzy, and burnt sienna.
Fast forward to 2025 and the federal government is banning Black History Month celebrations; disbanding clubs and resource groups for employees (including military members); and doing away with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies that seek to offer opportunities to people with shared history, struggles, and experiences that stem from their collective and systemic disenfranchisement. And the sacrilege of stripping away these programs on the day we celebrated and commemorated the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I was devastated by the nonchalance of a white acquaintance who voted Republican for the privilege of repealing women’s right to choose. He also “frequently” experienced “reverse racism” when he was denied jobs and housing, because neither his criminal record nor active drug abuse should matter. All he could mutter was, “That’s just the way it is.”
I was recently uplifted and rendered hopeful (if only for a few minutes) when I was visiting a hospitalized loved one in Tucson, Arizona. With a statewide Black population of 4.8 percent and the Tucson number rising to only 5 percent, it was a welcomed surprise. There, just past the reception desk was an approximately five and one half-foot tall sign acknowledging Black History Month, and it had the nerve to say, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Valuing our unique differences.” In a hospital. In Arizona—the state that refused to celebrate MLK Day until 1992 and only capitulated because they lost the Super Bowl and more than $200 million of revenue.
Perhaps the staff mistakenly liberated it from the storage room? Or maybe it was a symbolic “Black power!” fist raised in the air, courageously defying the new administration’s policies to roll back the progress of any Americans who aren’t white and male.
This morning, I heard Bruce Hornsby’s nearly 40-year-old song, “The Way It Is” (sampled by Tupac on “Changes”), on an oldies station. He sang: “Well they passed a law in ‘64 to give those who ain’t got a little more/But it only goes so far/ Because the law don’t change another’s mind when all it sees at the hiring time/ Is the line on the color bar/ Oh no/That’s just the way it is/Some things will never change/Ah, but don’t you believe them.”
I believe them. But I don’t agree and will do all I can to change things. You should, too.
